"Not in the least, dear Mary, I am sure--if it was a meeting calculated to raise and strengthen your spirits. And it _has_ made you happier, I hope," looking rather doubtfully into Mary's pale and anxious countenance, on which too the traces of tears were plainly visible. "Oh, yes, Alice!" Mary faintly replied. "Seeing Eugene was, indeed, a pleasure most welcome and unexpected; but then you know the parting again for so long a time--and--and--" turning her head away with a sigh, "altogether it might be called rather a painful pleasure." "But then, Mary, six months will so soon pass away." "Yes, certainly," hesitated Mary; but there was no very cheerful security in her tone. Mrs. Gillespie did not press her sister further on the subject just then, for she plainly perceived that altogether it was one in which truly as much of pain as pleasure was commingled. Of course she informed her husband of the occurrence; and Mary too spoke of it as openly as was possible, though the reserve she was forced in a great measure to maintain respecting the substance of the interview, the more confirmed her relations in their suspicions, as to its having been one of no very satisfactory nature. "And what, as far as you were able to judge, in so short a time, did you think of your intended brother-in-law, my dear Alice?" the husband inquired of his wife the evening after the meeting; "for I know you consider yourself a first rate physiognomist." "What do I think of him Robert?"--with a sigh--"poor Mary." "Why, poor Mary, do you not like his appearance?" "I should not much _like_ to trust my happiness, or that of any one I loved, to his keeping." "Indeed! he is very good-looking at any rate." "Yes, handsome certainly--eyes, such as you perhaps have seldom, if ever seen, and which, if they would only look you full in the face, are certainly calculated to do a great deal of execution. But he did not look so into mine; and there was something about his countenance altogether which I cannot explain--something which, though I can fancy it well calculated to make an impression--of some sort or another, over one's mind--I confess on mine--to have been one, which is far from _canny_. His looks too bespeak him, I am afraid, to be suffering rather from the jading effects of London dissipation, than the gentler pains and anxieties attendant on his situation, as a lover separated from the object of his affection." Mr. Gillespie looked concerned at this report, feeling a great interest in his amiable young sister-in-law. And though he generally expressed mistrust, with respect to his wife's too hasty reliance on her first impressions, still he was often in the end forced to acknowledge their frequent accuracy.